


Henry (day 11-Fever/"it's all my fault)

by Only_Slightly_Obsessed (A_Stressed_Cupcake)



Series: Rémy's 2020 Multifandom Whumptober Works [11]
Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, POV Multiple, Victor is delirious, Whumptober 2020, You're Welcome, and being a plot device, mr Kirwin deserves better than no character tag, so I wrote his diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26994892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Stressed_Cupcake/pseuds/Only_Slightly_Obsessed
Summary: Grief has aged this man, I can tell; grief and nothing else, for, though his hair has greyed and his skin paled and pulled around his eyes, he looks no more than thirty years old._____Whumptober 2020- day 11: Fever/"it's all my fault"
Series: Rémy's 2020 Multifandom Whumptober Works [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965271
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Henry (day 11-Fever/"it's all my fault)

**Author's Note:**

> cw: canon Frankenstein basically

_ There’s no saving me. _

_ The fever eats away at my mind and my body, slowly, but without pause, and I am sure there is no saving me. It’s the same for the man as it is for the fable; the wicked are punished and the good may be rewarded.  _

_ Not in my story. _

_ The wicked are punished indeed, but so are the good, indiscriminately, murdered without knowing why and never avenged.  _

_ It is my fault. _

_ Only my fault. _

_ I am a murderer. _

_ From the diary of Mr Kirwin.  _

One month has passed. The suspect is just as ill as on the first day, and, I believe, completely delirious.

Grief has aged this man, I can tell; grief and nothing else, for, though his hair has greyed and his skin paled and pulled around his eyes, he looks no more than thirty years old. 

He needs to be restrained, occasionally, for his own safety, being quite prone to struggling against nothing, screaming and wailing, flinging himself out of the bed and begging the nurses for his life or, more disturbingly, his death. He talks, but never to me; rather, to people I presume he knows from wherever he came from. He speaks French. In his ravings, he mentions his father quite often. Two women, Elizabeth and Justine. William. Ernest. And finally, Henry. I believe this to be the name of the murdered man on our shore, based on the way he speaks of and to him; he cries out his name just as he did upon witnessing his cadaver on that dreadful day.

Fortune has determined that his language, and thus his delirious screams, are known only to me; fortune, it seems, has smiled upon him in this regard, at least, for if the angry wardens and nurses of this prison were to hear how he declares himself a murderer, he would be doomed. I do not wish to see him killed. I can hardly believe him to be the murderer. Woven through all his self-hating, guilty ravings are tales of a monster, a daemon that haunts him.

He curses this monster with his every breath. He blames, alternating, himself and the monster for Henry’s death. I do not know the truth. I cannot say for sure that he isn’t the murderer; still, I refuse to condemn him until he’s had a chance to defend himself. 

I must go. 

I can hear him screaming again. 

**Author's Note:**

> RIP Henry and RIP Mr Kirwin's attempts to learn what the hell is going on.
> 
> -Rémy


End file.
